Jim Bouchard explains the Sensei Leader philosophy, using "kill the manager" as a metaphor for abandoning rigid control. True leaders inspire, empower, and guide people, while managers motivate, delegate, and drive tasks. Empowerment unlocks discretionary effort, the extra work people give when they feel led rather than managed.
Okay, what do you mean when you say kill the manager? Well, before you kill the manager, before you get out the pitchforks and torches— people in management roles, oh my gosh, ouch!
If you have manager in your title, please don't be offended by that. Management is about things, it's about process. Leadership is about people. Both are important, they're equally important. Problem is, and again we're back to Admiral Hopper, boy was she a smart person, huh? And she said the focus has been too much on management. Management's about things, leadership about people. We've spent too much time focusing on the management. Kill the manager is actually borrowed from an ancient Eastern practice called the koan. This goes back to my martial arts roots. A koan is a puzzle, it's a question that you ask yourself. And sometimes it seems almost like it doesn't have an answer, but most of the time it has a very crystal clear answer. Answer, but you have to really think about it. It's not usually the most obvious answer. One of the most famous ones is, "What do you do when you meet the Buddha on the road?" And the answer is kill him.
Kill him.
Yeah, I know, that sounds strange, doesn't it?
Why would you want to kill Buddha? God.
Here's why. The Buddha that we're talking about in that instance is not a person. It's not the person. It's that part of us that's obsessed with perfection. Now you know, you've heard me say this. It's in all of my— every book I think I've written on this has this, this idea. Greatest gift martial arts life ever gave me. Perfection is not a destination, it's a never-ending process, you see. So we become obsessed with that idea of perfection. We want to eliminate that. It's just making sure that, you know, to clear your path, you have to get rid of the stuff that's holding you back. When we're talking about "the manager" in quotations, we're talking about every single aspect of us that's holding us back from being an authentic and effective leader, you see. And the big 3, we'll talk about the big 3. We always talk about inspire, empower, and guide. A manager motivates or tries to. Motivation brings people to a certain expectation. A leader inspires. That means exceeding expectations. That means going above and beyond all that.
Getting your people to go the extra mile.
A deep emotional intellectual connection. Yeah. A manager delegates. The leader empowers. What does that mean? Yeah. Making sure that the people you serve have the resources, have the tools, have the training, have the inspiration necessary to go to that higher level, right?
That—
what's the technical word? Discretionary effort. Going the extra mile. You know, how many times we get asked, how do we get people to go the extra mile? Well, it's by inspiring and empowering them, right? And then that final one, a leader guides.
Guides, yeah.
The manager tries to drive or push. I think General Patton said this, right? You drive cattle, you lead people. If you want people to behave like cattle, well sure, go ahead, drive them, get out the whip, kick them, you know, see if you can move them down the road.
Yeah.
But if you really want them to perform at their very best, at their highest levels, then you need to guide them. That's why we really want you to embrace that idea. Be the Sensei leader. Be someone who inspires, empowers, and guides the people you serve to their very best. That's, that's what it's all about.
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